Still waiting on an explanation for the bizarre claim that "all humans are religious."

"False assumption considering you haven't provided a single shred of evidentiary support in this thread thus far."

i'm not the one making vast assertions on how things work

"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_theory"

how does this substantiate your argument?

"False."

elaboration on how?

"Genetic and environmental factors can cause irrational reactions to something"

"can" is very different to "always cause"

"Another name is the "Fight or Flight response"."

fight or flight responses are evolved reactions that occur before a person's conscious mind is able to process what the threat is properly

this is obviously different to someone actually consciously perceiving something like cotton balls and having a response

"Sexuality is a spectrum."

its not and it obviously can't be since sex occurs through the interaction of bodies, the primary sexual characteristics of those bodies follow two forms - penis and vagina... sure there's also anal sex but obviously sexuality is bounded by how our bodies develop

"But other species have "identified" as other animals... You raise a squirrel with kittens and it will start to purr."

animals cannot "identify" as anything, they are not self aware

sure they may change their behavior depending on their environment but its not a purposeful self-conscious imitation of some other group

"And that enjoyable feeling from that chemical reaction promotes repetition of an activity."

ok then why don't people cheat on their lovers anytime the opportunity presents itself? if its just about the dopamine rush?

"Consciousness is a very subjective term and is difficult to quantify either way"

primarily because we don't really understand it

I think the point being made is that all people believe in things that they do not have explicit evidence for

I kinda don't though, I believe in the possibility or, if it can be calculated, the probability of things for which there is as yet no concrete proof, but I only really believe in that which can be empirically reasoned or demonstrated. Religion seems to inherently consist of a belief in supernatural forces whose existence has to be taken on faith, whereas I don't believe in anything like that.

everyone actually does, probably the most prominent example is that we defer frequently to experts that we assume know what they are talking about in various fields and occasionally with the passage of time are proven wrong

Weighing the opinion of a qualified expert with more significance than someone unqualified isn't an exercise in religious thinking though, it's simply applying the empirical logic that an expert is more likely to be correct than a non-expert. And there's nothing supernatural involved.

"Weighing the opinion of a qualified expert with more significance than someone unqualified"

the pertinent question here is whether the science and values at play are correct, this hasn't been the case many times in the past and in the future looking back on this current era more examples will probably arise

my point is just that we assume the paradigm within which the experts are operating is correct and to me that's silly because we obviously still have problems so we need to keep an open mind

"And there's nothing supernatural involved."

more than 95% of the observable matter in the universe cannot be accurately classified by our top scientists, if you classify supernatural to be anything outside of what we know and understand, i'd argue that the chances of it existing are pretty much confirmed

At any point we can only go with the best information we have at the time, and the best method for attaining that is one which is empirical for the simple reason of practicality; if something can be proven to be true, that obviously trumps just assuming it's true,

And no, I wouldn't classify it that way, I'd classify it as the assumption of the existence of something for which there's no scientific basis.

"At any point we can only go with the best information we have at the time"

yes that's my point, but as we grow and learn our paradigm changes because we incorporate more knowledge into our understanding

"if something can be proven to be true"

nothing can really be proven to be true though, we make the assumption based on repetition

"And no, I wouldn't classify it that way, I'd classify it as the assumption of the existence of something for which there's no scientific basis"

if our science can't classify or measure something, how could you argue that there is a scientific basis for it?

If something cannot be quantified or demonstrated, if no empirical evidence exists to substantiate it, then I personally see no reason to believe it exists until such time, if ever, that it can be empirically demonstrated. 

That's just me. I'm a natural skeptic I guess.